Alta 2/1/08 TR (Words Only)
2/1/08
That day (yesterday) will forever be burned in my "powder skiing" brain. As BumZ said yesterday, "we are spoiled around here"; so naturally it takes a pretty amazing day to rise to the top of all the other days of any particular season let alone ALL the seasons. Yesterday was one of those days; very memorable even to an old man like myself and had me thinking about and mentioning this day http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4549 more than once.
Day started with a 4:30 am wake up to beat the 5:30 road closure. Hang at GMD waiting for Interlodge to lift so we can go lineup. I think every local that came up early was questioning in the back of their mind if the early start was really necessary and if the wind had jacked the new snow much as it had been doing most other days of the week. The first lift ride up and run down answered both of those questions. And not seeing another car in the lot for 3 laps confirmed the answers.
The following words will most likely not even come close to communicating what I both saw and felt, but I will do my best. The snow was virtual perfection. Find steepest slope. Get in Bus Driver position. Point skis downhill. Prepare to only see half your run. Go!! Gather appropriate amount of speed. Try and see ahead. See in your lower peripheal vision snow slowy, ever so slowy, building against your body - at least the snow that wasn't being blown in all directions - as you were being floated and engulfed at the same time. Watch in anticipation as a few thousand of the "lighter, drier" flakes were pushed ahead and up into the air 50 to 100 feet in front of you knowing full and well that those flakes would be your next face shot. And then feel yourself ski into them as they just hung in the air!?!? Un-freakin' real!!! Turn only when you had to or when you wanted more surreal-ism. In all my previous days at Alta, I don't recall anything like that happening before. I don't know if I have just not noticed such detail before, or if my senses were heighthened or what; but one thing is for sure - I will never, ever forget what I saw or felt when that happened. And it happened ALOT yesterday. Each time I could not hold the giggle in; had to time that giggle though less you suck in a mouthfull and end up choking yourself on it. :fmicon:
This was repeated for 3 solo laps. Then I met up with DTM and BumZ; 2 of my favorite guys to shred with. We caught the opening of Backside and were 4,5, & 6 in there. All I can say is that when we got back onto Sugarloaf, we all just looked at each other and said "I think that is the best Backside I've ever had." We then hit a couple of my favorite little Nug Zones around High Boy; so much fun to show these two lines to these guys and let them have firsts in them - I would've bet my life that we had skiied them together before, but we hadn't.
DTM then left and Z and I went in for lunch. After lunch it took Z and I a couple of laps to get the legs warmed up again and then we met up with Phunk to close the day out with a couple of Rus4's and West Rus's. Faceshots were still had at the Final Bell :fmicon:
Z and I then headed up to the Sitz (my favorite Apre bar in the world) for some beers, boomerangs and commradre with the best Locals anywhere. After Z and I left there at 9 pm, all I could do was smile the whole way down the canyon as I reflected upon the events of the day from the millions of face shots, to good ski buddies (who are also great friends), to great ski bars, to Alta.
Yesterday at Alta was one of those days that you'd trade an awful lot for to have a Big Red Rewind Button so you could re-live it anytime you wanted. It was one of those days to just live in the moment and forget about everthing else in your life and just enjoy being here and be thankful for the events/decisions that got you here.
Long live 2/1/08 at Alta!!!
